And if Hedges is fretting about the “hypermasculinity” ( what the hell…) of the Black Bloc of certain OWS groups who, other than being loud, dressed in black, breaking a few windows and getting into occasional scuffles with the cops, haven’t done much, I can’t imagine how he would have reacted to the Weathemen, Malcom X/N.O.I, or the Panthers, etc..

what annoys me at times , is, that we look at the Egyptians or the Greek, or the Syrians as sort of an unenlightened, primitive people, which they are not.

They are just in a different situation, and the tools of resistance they use match the situation.

We can see how much this can deteriorate, and the tools of resistance match the situation.
All this is not starightforward, because the west, so to sy, has developed a very sophisticated method of ‘democratic ‘ face-preservation, which totalitarian regimes lack.

Quite some time ago I tried to formulate as ‘appeal to shame’ as the lowest, most decent appeal to recover a decent society.
Appeal to shame is an appeal to the moral faculties of the societal collective and especially the
elite. This is currently imploding.

The next step would be appeal to law.

This is also in danger, but I have some hope on this level .
Eg tax evasion over 1Million € is UNCONDITIONALLY punished with prison in Germany.
This gives me some hope, that the rule of law actually can be effective.
We’ll see.
No need for the guillotine yet.

The US is definitely in a worse condition, but not yet everything is lost.

There is an extreme divergence concerning the rule of law.
See eg the Spanish, who give the primates human rights status.
This is embarrassing for me backward German, to see the Spanish abandon ‘Corrida’ and such.
Maybe the ICC will succeed in not only indicting Mladic and Milosevic, but also Bush and Blair.
But this is a power-struggle, which has some way to go.

There is a certain movement, which bases on the appeal to shame and the rule of law, where we do not yet have to appeal to force.

Maybe this will change sometime, but not yet.
Mrs Clinton and Mr Obama should feel ashamed, when they appeal to ‘freedom’ in China, simultaneously restricting freedoms in the homeland.
This should produce some shame via cognitive dissonance.

Maybe Obama develops some shame, if eg the Nobel-Price is retracted from him.

If he has no shame then. Well. We see.

I was confused by the trashing of Chris Hedges , whom I keep in high regard.
I read quite a lot of comments at commondreams, and concerning the black block he maybe got something wrong here.
I don’t know.
The black block, as I see it, is somehow universal.
It played a role at Tahrir (the football guys) and is present in Germany (sorry to mention this again) also. The black block is to my understanding an intrinsic affair of a/any(?) resistance-movement.
This is on both sides.

Who is -ahem – ‘communicating’ depends on the situation, and hopefully the more moderate factions get the overhand.
This is a struggle with some hinterland.

I myself associate to Zerzan-type primitivism, but pay attention to the Kaczinsky-type also.
TK was no nutcase, as conventional thinking tried to corner him.
I read the manifesto quite thoroughly some time ago, and also know the film MB has linked to. It’s a good one.

Maybe my testosterone-level is not high enough anymore, and lose any fight with the bankster-mob with their long ring-fingers and that and their strange behaviors in the ultimatum game.

To avoid a fight, I just would want to shift them through an fmri-scanner, detect their mental deficiencies, and put them into some asylum. (no killing, please)
All the Hitlers, Stalins, Goebbels, Bushes, Mladics, Gaddafis, Assads, and whathaveyou.

As convenient this may be, I am afraid this will not solve our problems.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doQAwLb-DEE

Cuba has managed the aftermath quite well. Is there some political repression, sure, but the people are so much better off it isn’t even funny.

Perhaps MB was referring to the ease in which Che & Co. embraced summary execution during the fight, and into the early days of the post-revolution. In which case, I would concur that there are valid criticisms. As a matter of fact, Saint Che is a perfect example of what sort of leadership you get when you permit brutality in your revolution. In the name of expedience. Of winning.

I am, in general, supportive of the Cuban regime – and especially impressed with what Fidel has pulled off in the face of the mother of all embargoes (especially post-Soviet – and who knows how successful the Cuban experiment could have become without this hindrance), but I will say that accounts of the arc of the revolution leave me cold.

And I’m not buying that this brutality was necessary – I know that the “success” of it buttresses Ian’s view here. Perhaps it may have taken longer, or maybe never happened but, to me, what happened in Cuba was more incremental than revolutionary. Economically “revolutionary” in that it was a pissing contest between capitalism & “socialism”, but I’ve got my eye on a bigger prize, and it has to do with how we organize socially.

Fuck bullies and bosses. No man/woman above another.

As for hypermasculinity, people don’t even know what masculinity looks like anymore. The non-violence folks just sit there and take and take it.

I’m a pussy – I get it (yes, I know you’re comment wasn’t directed towards me, but I’m taking up the gauntlet today. I’m in a mood.) This thinly-veiled misogynist taunt is beneath you, Ian.

Progressives are far more interested in being “morally correct” than in winning. Until they’re willing to do what it takes, they’ll continue getting their asses handed to them. Your fellow citizens like torture, they like hurting you, your moral “superiority” doesn’t move them, they laugh and think you’re getting what you deserve. That’s who Americans are now. They like seeing hippies get their faces smashed in.

Being crucified isn’t going to win you this battle.

Speaking of taunts – this is the sort of rhetoric I enjoyed on the schoolyard when I refused to get into a fight. And of course, the bullies are always right… in the short term. Unless, of course, you buy their argument and join in, in which case the Empire of violence lives on through another generation, as it were. It’s only when you say “no” to this that there is a chance (not a guarantee!) that it may stop.

Not a guarantee! That’s what makes it heroic. That’s why our hearts climb into our throats when the names of even the ineffectual pacifists – the martyrs – are spoken.

When winning is more important that being “morally correct”, we do not have the same emotional relationship to these “winners.” That’s your heart, telling you something.

See, worrying about whether or not non-violence is a tactic that “works” on the road to winning smacks of means-justifying-the-ends to some of us who are apparently overly concerned with being “morally correct.”

I know when the devil is whispering in my ear.

Yeah, appreciate the heads up; but I already am looking at it and couldn’t agree more.
I only trust my own gut; and it rings true 99%.
Jonathan Haidt was a bit too calm (for lack of a better word) in his analysis, but I found some nuggets there which garnered some attention. Remember Sun Tsu, The Art of War? Know your enemy; understand your enemy/adversary.
But he did say some things regarding liberals and conservatives which seemed to ring true for understanding the dichotomy. Being neither it’s more of an exercise in understanding the “other” for me.
The differing brain regions shtick is just another rationalization for choices made. As are most other crap psychology theories.
I also agree with your comment to Ian; which, once again, makes me question WTF am I doing commenting here or anywhere else?
Oh well, the beat goes on, no?
Cheers Bear…

John Zerzan, one of the principal ideologues of the Black Bloc movement in the United States, defended “Industrial Society and Its Future,” the rambling manifesto by Theodore Kaczynski, known as the Unabomber, although he did not endorse Kaczynski’s bombings

I think it’s a dirty tactic on Hedges part. You can agree with parts of that manifesto…..meaning what is said, in some respects, rings true and resonates, and not align yourself with the tactics utilized by the obviously disturbed individual who penned them. Has Hedges looked at how deep the Kaczynski story goes? I doubt it, probably because he’s not interested…but he should be. You can’t overcome an enemy you don’t understand.

Anyhow, I won’t thrwo out the babies in the bathwater of the Unabomber’s Manifesto. There’s some very interesting material in there, and he wasn’t off the mark with a number of his observations and/or interpretations of events/trends.

Also, there are many types of cancer, not just the one Hedges mentions. In fact, I’m not sure I would label the Black Blok a cancer on the “Movement.” To the Occupiers, maybe more like a wart, or a corn. The cancer is more genetic in form….inherited. I posted this before, in another thread, but it appeared to have gone unnoticed. I know it’s Jon Stewart, and it’s satire of a satire, but it’s poignant. What Stewart and his staff reveal is the greatest threat to the OWS “Movement”, IMO.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-november-16-2011/occupy-wall-street-divided

Nice watch, however there may be a fundamental flaw ascribing the difference to philosophical outlooks (notice how uniform the “conservative” response was in all categories, a warning of dangerous conclusions if anything). Other studies reported in European media point to evidence that the liberal/conservative divide was based upon the use of differing brain regions to process information and thought. The short version, liberals use higher developed parts of the brain in their thinking processes, the conservative rely on the primitive areas in their cognition. The presentation of the theory was too smooth to ring true, much the same as free markets, trickle-down and deregulation theories but at the same time good licks for goombaiya rapprochement and rapport evidenced in what passes as the political conduct and philosophy of the current occupant of the whitehouse. Cheers

@ Ian

You are wasting your time bringing this information to the majority of your audience, anything that is not already programmed into their consciousness is programmed to be disregarded, beside your minder in the comments will not agree and will disrupt all attempts at discourse, diverting whatever conservation to subjects of their approbation. The minders suppression of opinion with which they disagree stifles entry into the conversation of many and has in the past driven off some outstanding points of view whose authors failed to contend with the outpouring of insidious crap from your minder. Good luck with that.